Saturday, January 03, 2009

Gaza Inanity Round-up

. . . there is no such peace strategy, only an Israeli leadership so dazzled by its own military might that it has come to believe that force is almost always the answer - and the way to avoid the toughest questions.

Does the Gaza war improve Israel's long-term (or even short-term) situation? Might it not have been better to induce Hamas to stop the shelling by ending the blockade Israel imposed back when Hamas won the Palestinian election?

. . . there are few signs that the Israeli establishment, fully committed to the Zionist goals of creating Eretz Israel (a Greater Israel that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan), plans to relinquish very much land at all: 250,000 Israelis already live on the West Bank.

How does just war theory defend the deaths of many innocent civilians as a means to increase "deterrent strength"? But notice also the modesty of Israel's apparent war-aims: a more stable security situation for residents of Southern Israel over the long term. They're not optimistic about ending those rocket attacks, are they?

What does he think deterrence and security refer to if the threat is from the rockets?

Israel has no respect for treaties or charters or conventions or even religions, and in this latest massacre they did not even respect the sanctity of the Jewish holy day of Saturday [Operation Cast Lead; Gaza Attack began on Saturday].

CNN US did a telephone interview with Mustafa Barghouti, who complained that CNN's coverage was all from the Israeli side. He insisted that Hamas had been ready to negotiate a cease-fire and pointed out that Hamas had killed no one during the truce since June and before the Israeli attack. Barghouti has a pretty thick accent and I don't know how well he is understood by US audiences. Why is it that Israeli interviewees all have American accents but no similar Palestinian observers can be found?